The 1928-S Standing Liberty Quarter has a Large "S" Mint Mark and a small "s" Mint Mark. I am attracted to the 1928-S and have been hoarding them. This came up in one of my silly posts a week or two ago, since I was using mostly 1928-S coins for my grading post tonight, why not throw in an easy way to show the board how to spot a Small S versus a Large S?
Now, time to bore you!
Large S:
The Large "S" tends to be fully square, it also tends to be placed, at least on all the copies that I have, even or just a hair above the northeast point in the star that it is next to, roughly centered in the mint mark area.
Here's a Large S coin, sorry, I stink at photographing coins.
Small S:
The Small "s" tends to be either centered or oriented a bit towards the bottom in the mint mark area. The upper left part of the "s" is rounded and lower than the serif on most all of them, I haven't obtained enough copies to be sure but there may be 2 small "s" punches used. It is usually taking up roughly 2/3 of the height of the mint mark area as opposed to the large "S" which takes up an easy 75-80%. It's also often seen, depending on the die, smack dab against the star to its' left.
Here's a picture of one, hope you guys can see what I mean. Note, this coin has a die break but it does not affect the mint mark.
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